3rd Grade Still Life

3rd grade artists combined their observational drawing skills and knowledge of warm and cool colors on this quick, 2-day project. I brought in my plants from home and borrowed 2 from the kindergarten pod and placed them in the center of the art room. I modeled how I follow the contour of each leaf on the plant with my eyes and my pencil at the same time. After a few drawings in their sketchbook, the students loosened up and were ready to draw with black glue. To make the black glue, I mixed Elmer's glue and black powder tempera paint in a bow with a little water (you want it to be the consistency of normal white glue)l and then scooped it back into the glue containers. After writing their name with pencil on a 11 x 17 piece of construction paper, they grabbed a black glue, tested it on a piece of scrap paper, and began drawing. Once complete, they placed it on the drying rack to dry. Drawing with glue was a new process for all of them and they did a great job with this new medium! 

The following art class, we used warm and cool color chalk pastels to add more color. Using these color schemes was a review since they just completed their Warm/Cool Color Chalk Landscapes. If their paper was a warm color, they stuck with warm colors. If their paper was a cool color, they had to stick with cool-colored chalk pastels. Adding color took most of them only one 45-minute class period. They matted it, wrote their name with a Sharpie, and were done! I love how they turned out. Thanks to Davenport School art teacher Stacey Houk for the lesson idea!